The Devils of Thasos
by Ichabod Ebenezer
Summary: Nth Doctor part 5 of 12. Tourists are going missing on the Greek island of Thasos, and a bored Doctor and Pandora decide to investigate. They quickly discover that an ancient undersea menace is behind it, but when their chief scientist talks of a grand experiment, this may just change the Doctor's whole world picture.
1. Thasos

"No, I didn't know that! How interesting!" Thomas said to the blonde girl, slightly over half his age. He nursed his drink, reminding himself that the point was to get her drunk, not him.

The girl bounced in time with the overpowering music as she continued to tell Thomas about her job. "Mmm, hmm!" she yelled, "And the lunches are catered, so I haven't had to spend any of my own money. So, the pay's not really that bad!"

Thomas carefully held on to his wildly interested smile, and began bouncing along with her when suddenly there was a vibration in his pocket. Damn, he though, looking for a clear path to the exit. He held up his phone. Jennifer was calling. "It's probably work!" he yelled to the blonde. "I have to take this!" She nodded and sipped her drink. Thomas headed quickly for the door, though not running.

He got the door closed on the fourth ring, swiping to answer just before it went to voicemail. The sound of the disco was muffled, but still quite loud out here. He continued to move quickly away from the clubs lining the waters edge as he spoke into the phone. "Hi, Honey! So glad you could call!"

"Hey Babe, how's the conference going?"

"Oh, you know. Boring and dry. And you? How are things at home?"

"Same old, same old, but home is home. You're in Greece! That's got to be a kick. What's the nightlife like?"

Thomas looked back at the club a little guiltily. "There isn't much really. It's pretty enough in the daytime — I'll send you pictures — but it's really just a fishing town. A bunch of old people who go to sleep early and rise with the sun." He looked back at the club again, this time with more longing than guilt. He really needed to get back there before that blonde— what was her name? It didn't matter. Before she found some other lucky guy to buy her a drink. "Look, Honey, I need to go, it was a rough flight followed by a long day, and I'm going to turn in —"

A scraping on the pavement just behind Thomas startled him, and he turned around. Three figures lunged out of the darkness and grabbed him, knocking his phone from his hand. "Let go!" he yelled. "No! Aaaaaahh!"

"Hello? Thomas? What was that? Are you there? Thomas?" called the voice on the other end of the phone, laying, screen broken, on the pavement as Thomas' unconscious form was dragged away. "Thomas?"

* * *

Pandora picked up another one of the gadgets littering the Doctor's workbench and turned it over between the fingers of both hands. "And what's this one do?"

The Doctor looked up from his work, the multiple lenses of his jeweler's glasses making his right eye look twice as big as his left. He reached out and grabbed the device and set it down carefully on the table. "It's a power core from a Zygon communication module." He went back to tinkering on his latest device.

Pandora frowned and looked around. The Doctor's little alcove was getting more and more cluttered with the things he kept putting together. She reached right across the Doctor's work area to pick up another item of interest. "And what about this one?"

The Doctor grabbed her hand before she reached it, and held on to it, breathing a sigh of relief. "That is a vortex rift stabilizer, and unless you want to get pulled into the rift, I suggest you don't touch it." He let go of her hand and she retracted it, looking glum again.

The Doctor returned to adjusting a minuscule timing pin on a row of similar items under the open hatch of his device. He paused in his work when he realized that Pandora's face was scant inches from his own as she was watching his work closely.

He closed his eyes impatiently and removed the pin adjuster, a tool of his own making. "What is going on, Pandora?" the Doctor asked.

"I'm bored! That's what's going on!" She threw up her arms and sighed dramatically. "Aren't you? I mean, don't you feel it? It's been forever since we've had any kind of adventure. Summer's over, but it's still too hot to do anything, and we're just sitting here doing nothing. Admit it, you don't really want to be working on this thing right now, do you?"

The Doctor set down the tool and the gadget, and sighed. "I'll admit, I have been feeling a bit... antsy… lately."

He sat at his workbench leaning on his elbow with a rather dissatisfied, even frustrated look on his face. He looked as if he were formulating the words to expound on his statement, but instead he came to a decision. He stood up suddenly and put a finger on a knot in the wood of his workbench. Several sections of the bench came to life, causing Pandora to take a step backward in surprise and awe.

A square panel just where the Doctor had been sitting flipped over. The tools that were scattered across that part of his bench stayed affixed to the wood as it flipped, as if magnetized to the spot. A monitor and keyboard were revealed. A panel further over slid to the side and more controls rose to sit flush with the surface. Further transformations continued. At one point Pandora rushed forward and grabbed her box just as that section of workbench folded in on itself. She watched as a spark plug that had been laying next to it actually folded and receded into the newly filled space.

The Doctor pointed to the screen and, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, said, "Six tourists to the island of Thasos in Greece have gone missing in the last five days. The last one was a Russian woman. Her friends witnessed the abduction, and claim that she was dragged off by a trio of 'Chyerti'; roughly translated as 'devils'."

There was a Russian website up on screen with a video showing the tourist friends speaking about the incident, however Pandora paid it no attention as she was still fixated on the former workbench. The bench had raised slightly in back and widened into an isosceles trapezoid. The oddest assortment of controls littered the surface. There was what looked like a hydraulic pump next to a steamship's telegraph, next to a whole bank of dials and sliders that look like they were lifted from a recording studio. There were a series of cranks along the edge, and a potentiometer that looked like it came out of Doctor Frankenstein's lab.

"Where did all this come from?" Pandora asked.

"Well, I've had to make due. I don't want to be totally disconnected from the world down here."

He ignored the keyboard in front of the monitor, and instead primed the hydraulic pump twice, pushed the lever on the telegraph forward two positions to 'dead slow', slid over to turn two dials then slid back and rang an antique brass call bell embedded in the console. The website changed to show an arial view of the Greek Island.

"Now that's total rubbish," Pandora said, pointing at the bell. "That bell is never connected to anything."

"Of course it is. Watch." He leaned across and pushed up one of the sliders, then rang the bell again. The image zoomed in further to display a town on the Southern end of the island.

"Limenaria," the Doctor explained, "where four of the six have gone missing. A quiet little village on the Adriatic. There's a lumber industry and a quarry nearby, but mainly, they serve the tourist trade." He turned a dial and hit the bell again. An image of beach umbrellas and crystal clear water came up. He turned the dial another click and hit the bell once more. The image switched to an old hotel in white plaster and a relatively new bar and disco next door.

That nagging feeling of recognition finally sparked into something concrete for Pandora, and she broke out laughing. "This is like in the Monk's Tardis, that wedge you pulled up. This is a Tardis console, isn't it?"

"No," the Doctor said defensively. "It's totally different. I just… like the layout. It's… organized. Like my mind."

Pandora continued to look at the Doctor as if she thought he were crazy.

"Look," the Doctor said, pushing a big red button marked 'Emergency Stop', which caused the console to transform itself back into a workbench. "If you aren't interested in going with me to Greece and figuring out what's behind the disappearances, then just say so."

Pandora suppressed her mocking smile and said, "Doctor, just for future reference, anytime you're asking me if I'd like to travel to a Greek Island and investigate mysterious abductions with you, I'm going to say, 'Hells yeah'. You could even drop the Greek part or the mystery part and you'd get the same answer. Anything's better than just sitting around here."

Then her expression changed and her eyebrows knitted. "But how are we going to get there? Your timeship—"

"Tardis," the Doctor corrected. "Timeships are totally different things."

"—Tardis. Whatever. Your Tardis is still out of commission. You've got your psychic paper, but I've got no ID. No ID means no plane ticket. And even with a ticket, I still don't have a passport, and without one of those, can I even get through Greek customs?"

"Thus the adventure begins, Pandora! It's time you stopped thinking along the normal lines. Who do you want to be today? A pair of flight instructors gone seriously off track? Military pilots on maneuvers? Stowaways on a cargo plane?"

"I don't think my box'll fit in a military cockpit…"

"You can leave it here. It'll be fine in my little alcove. No one can find it here," the Doctor said, dismissing her concerns.

Pandora looked nervously down at her box, an ornately carved wooden chest just about big enough to keep a cat in, padlocked in front and with a handle on top. "I'd rather not be away from it that long. Either we take it with us, or I don't go."

The Doctor stared at the box as well, more curious now than ever he had been, but he broke off the moment she looked up. "Cargo plane it is then. Let's get one re-routed to Thasos, shall we?"

He turned back to his workbench and pressed the knothole on its surface again. It reconfigured itself for him, and he began typing at the keyboard at lightning speed. Every once in a while, he would pause in his typing to reach across the console, and flip a switch or turn a crank. The one in the middle made a 'squeaky, squeaky' noise as her spun it. Web pages and text terminals flashed across the screen for several minutes, then the Doctor sat back in his stool and watched. An animated gif depicting a cluster of emerald crystal tubes moved up and down through a glass casing sat in the center of his screen indicating that it was working, then the desk bell rang, startling Pandora. When she looked back at the screen, an email was on display.

"There you go," the Doctor said, tapping on the screen. "Relief supplies and tents donated to the island to aid the Syrian refugees. Enough that they'll need a Hercules to transport them. That ought to be plenty enough space to guarantee a comfortable enough ride."

He spun around on his stool to look at Pandora with a wide, excited grin. "We have," he said and looked at his watch, "one hour thirty to get to RAF Croughton. Plenty of time to come up with our cover story. Need anything for the journey?"

* * *

The Hercules actually took them to Kratikos, and they took an Uber, a ferry and another Uber from there to Limenaria.

The Doctor showed the first variation of his outfit that Pandora had ever seen as soon as they stepped out of the car. He put on his sunglasses, then bent and unzipped the lower portion of his pant legs, turning them into cargo shorts. He shoved the leg material into one of his pockets, then pulled off his hoodie and wrapped it around his waist, tying the sleeves into a knot at the front. He patted down his pockets until he found the one he wanted and pulled out a small tube. He squeezed out some zinc oxide and slathered it over his nose. He offered the tube to Pandora, then paused when he saw her looking him up and down.

"What?" he asked, then looked at himself, arms held wide. He realized his legs were a bit pale, but surely that couldn't be it. "Ah, the shirt," he said. His graphic tee today had a depiction of an atom on one side and said, 'Never trust an atom, they make up everything.' "I'm wearing it ironically," he explained, "They only make up three percent of the universe." He offered her the tube again.

Pandora shook her head. "No thanks. I tan okay."

The Doctor shrugged, capped the tube and shoved it back into a pocket. "How would you even know that? You're British."

"Hah! Thanks for that," Pandora responded.

She looked around at the city. The streets had deteriorated quickly after they'd left the 69, a highway that looped around the island, connecting the major cities and beaches before returning to the ferry dock at the city of Thasos. The buildings looked like they were all from the seventies or earlier, and even the ones in decent repair kept to the same design. There were a scattering of more modern buildings that stood out as if to say, 'Tourists, stay here.' The car had dropped them off at the shore, where there were a mix of old buildings and new discos, but now in the middle of the day, the town stood empty. There was a large and peaceful marina behind a pair of breakwaters. In the marina were anchored a fleet of fishing vessels, a pair of luxury yachts and a research vessel of some sort, with a large crane at the stern and an on its deck, an oddly shaped craft that looked a bit like a helicopter without rotors. Beyond the marina, the clear blue-green Adriatic sea extended to the South as far as Pandora could see.

Pandora pulled her tablet out of her bag and started looking for a WIFI signal. "Good luck with that," the Doctor said.

She looked over at him then back at her device. She took a few steps in each direction and waited for a second before trying another way. "Yeah, I thought maybe with the clubs…"

"The clubs are only active at night, and even then they don't cater to the sorts who would be watching their phones."

Pandora sighed and returned her tablet to her shoulder bag, looking around again.

"Let's go find Svetlana's friends," the Doctor said, bringing Pandora back to the reason they were there. "The article mentioned that they were staying at the Katerina." He was looking at his phone and orienting himself until he pointed just East of North. "Which is that way. Come along, Pandora." Without looking back, he began marching off into the city. Pandora picked her box up and followed after him.

They soon found themselves in front of Katerina Studios, a well kept, peach-colored three story building with Spanish tiles for a roof. They walked up to the first door on the ground floor, not sure which one held the witnesses, but then they heard the sounds of Russian conversation taking place two flights up. The Doctor bounded up the stairs and knocked loudly on the door.

The door was opened by a short blonde woman in her mid-twenties. She wore an off the shoulder t-shirt with the straps of a bikini top showing from underneath. Her legs down to her painted toenails were bare. Over her shoulder they could see a tall young man with a dark complexion and a flat-top hair style wearing a tank top and gold chains over red bathing trunks and flip flops.

"Hello, yes?" the woman asked.

"Hello," the Doctor said cheerfully, holding up his psychic paper, "I'm the Doctor and this is Pandora. We're with the Christian Science Monitor. We were hoping to ask you a few questions about Svetlana's abduction."

The woman sighed tiredly. "Won't you people leave us alone?" she asked in heavily accented English.

"We're not like the others," the Doctor assured her, "and it's alright. We speak Russian."

Pandora's head popped up. 'We do?', she thought, then she remembered 'the gift of the Tardis'. 'We do," she thought, and smiled.

The man in the apartments spoke up, "You won't believe us. You are only going to make us look like idiots in your little newspaper. Why should we speak to you?"

Pandora stepped forward. "Like the Doctor said. We're not like the others. I think you'll find we'll believe what you have to say."

The woman considered her words for a while, then stepped aside and opened the door wider. "I'm Dasha. This is Lyosha," she said, indicating the young man. "He is Sveta's boyfriend." She motioned to a couch and a couple chairs.

"Thank you for talking to us, Dasha," Pandora said, and sat on the couch with her box on her lap. Dasha sat next to her and Lyosha took one of the chairs.

The Doctor went instead into the attached kitchen and pulled out the coffee maker. He smelled the bowl, then filled it with water from the tap. "How about you start by telling us what you were doing when it happened?"

"We were tired after dancing at Istos down on the beach," Dasha said.

"The music there is good," Lyosha added.

Dasha continued. "But we weren't, you know, sleepy tired, so we decided to walk along the beach for a while. It was a nice night, pleasantly warm, and the sound of the waves on the beach was very soothing. Sveta had to stop to tie her shoe as we crossed the bridge down there, and we got a bit ahead of her."

"Hang on, the bridge?" the Doctor asked. He began searching through cupboards until he found an old packet of Lipton tea bags. He smelled that too and pulled a face, but he took out several tea bags anyway.

"There's a dry river bed at the end of the breakwater, and there is a bridge for the road that goes over it." Losha explained.

"Go on," Pandora said to Dasha.

Dasha hesitated for a moment before continuing. "We heard Sveta scream. Now, you must understand, the moon was out, and the night was bright. So our eyes weren't playing tricks or whatever you're thinking."

"It's okay," the Doctor called, pausing in his activity to listen intently. "Just tell us what you saw."

Dasha swallowed hard. "They were big. And black."

"Green-black," Lyosha interrupted.

Dasha glanced over at him then went on. "They were like reptiles, but they were wearing clothes. Gowns made of netting or something. They had long necks, like — I don't know — like a llama or something, and these… fins on their heads." She held her hand up to the sides of her head, palms just behind her ears and fanning out her fingers out toward the back. "Sveta was struggling to get away from them, and they were holding a hand over her mouth so she wouldn't scream again. They only had three fingers and these claws. Chyerti," she said. She was holding up a curled hand to show the claws.

"I ran at them," Lyosha said. "I was going to hit them. Fight them off… But I blacked out," he added, ashamed.

"They shot him. I don't know what with, and I didn't see any bullets or rays or whatever, but they held up this thing, and Lyosha fell over." Dasha swallowed again. "I started screaming, then they turned their gun toward me, and I blacked out too."

The Doctor came out of the kitchen and set down three mugs of tea, taking a fourth for himself.

Pandora and Dasha picked up theirs, but Lyosha ignored his. He stood up, suddenly angry. "They weren't costumes, and we aren't crazy. I was close. I could see the muscles in their neck move when they turned toward me. I could see the glint in their eyes. These were devils, come from Hell to drag Sveta down, and it should have been me!"

"It's a big leap from 'not-human' to 'devils from hell'," Pandora said.

"But don't worry," the Doctor said, "Pandora and I are investigative journalists. If Svetlana is still alive—"

"And she probably is—" Pandora interrupted.

"And she could well be," the Doctor corrected, "we'll find her."

A moment passed while they all sat silently in thought, holding hot mugs of tea in their hands. Then the Doctor downed his in one gulp and stood up quickly. He took Pandora's un-drunk tea from her hands and set both mugs on the table. "Come along Pandora, we're on the case," he said and headed for the door.

Pandora stood up and said gently, "We'll do everything we can. Thank you," and she too left.

When they were outside, the Doctor was moving quickly again in the direction of the beach. Pandora hurried to keep up, lugging her box with her. "So, what do you think? Aliens?"

"No, not this time, I don't think so," the Doctor said.

"I don't get it then. Is this not our kind of thing or not?" Pandora asked.

"Oh, it's our kind of thing, I think. I want to see the crime scene before I make any specific predictions though." He had a good stride going, but Pandora was used to his style of walking by now and walked alongside him in silence.

When they got back down to the beach, the Doctor shaded his eyes and found the line of the breakwater. "West," he said and headed off again. Pandora, having only rested for a moment, sighed and transferred the box to her other arm, then took off again after him.

The Doctor stopped when he got to the bridge and awkwardly reached into the pocket of his hoodie, which was hanging off his waist. He produced the sonic screwdriver and began scanning the long bridge. Pandora stepped to the side of the bridge and looked over the edge. The concrete spillway of a wide dry river bed ran some fifteen feet below them. Far enough that Pandora wouldn't want to jump, but not so far she'd be afraid of dying if she fell. She turned back to find the Doctor carefully examining every inch of the bridge, and she started on the end she was on.

She walked slowly along the edge of the bridge, scanning the ground in front of her. She wasn't sure what she was meant to be looking for, but she thought maybe an earring, or possibly signs of a scuffle, or perhaps even weird footprints. The sun baked concrete didn't leave any possibility of the latter two as it turned out, but the heat reflected up at her reminded her that she was still wearing her jacket. It had been absolute ages since she'd last removed it, and a stench came off her as she pulled her arms out of the sleeves. She looked over at the Doctor, hoping he couldn't smell her, or even worse, that she usually smelled like this and she's just gotten used to it. She bundled her jacket up and laid it across the box she was carrying. She bunched up her sleeves and went back to scanning the bridge. A further thought occurred to her and she started looking for blood drops as well.

She got to the other end of the bridge without finding anything. The Doctor was still scanning slowly and had only reached the middle of the bridge, so she walked over to the seaward side of the bridge with the intention of searching on the way back. Instead, something in the dirt at the end of the bridge caught her eye. There was a tree planted there, and a little trail leading down into the muddy tidal estuary below. In the middle of this trail lay a dried-up, long thin greenish-black thing that appeared to be organic. There were a few bumps or nodules along its length.

"Doctor? What's this?" she called out.

The Doctor stopped his scanning and hurried to stand over by her. "A ha," he said and pointed his sonic at it. He then stooped and picked it up. "Sea weed," he said.

"Oh. Sorry, I thought it was something."

"It is something. Those bumps on the underside are a type of clam that only grows at extreme depths. Something dragged this up from the deep sea." He dropped the sea weed and wiped his hand off on his shorts, looking out over the seemingly endless Adriatic before them.

"What could have done that?"

"It's possible it came up with a deep sea fisherman's anchor…" he trailed off.

Pandora sensed an 'or' coming. "Or?" she asked.

"Or, this town, this island and quite possibly this world, are in terrible danger," the Doctor said quietly.

A chill ran through Pandora. "So, what do we do about it?"

The Doctor turned to face her, a wide grin on his face. "A stakeout!"


	2. The Devils

Toward the end of the day, the wind picked up, and by nightfall distant thunder could be heard. A fierce storm rolled in from the West, and a torrential warm rain started pouring down on the island by 10:00pm.

To their credit, the club goers were a sturdier lot than the sun goers had been during the day. The discos, while by no means full, were doing decent business and pumping out dance music like a flower pumps out fragrance, and for much the same reason. Soon after nightfall, small groups of young people could be seen running to the clubs with jackets held over their heads to protect their carefully constructed coiffure.

The Doctor and Pandora found shelter under the palm leaf thatch of a beach cafe, which kept the rain off rather noisily and provided them a view of the entire club scene at once.

"It takes particularly brave and stupid individuals to be out with what's going on. A little rain isn't going to scare the likes of them," the Doctor commented over the staccato sound of the rain on the thatch.

"What does that say about us?" Pandora yelled back.

The Doctor chuckled, but did not reply. They settled in for a long night.

An hour into their vigil, a loud and rowdy group left one of the clubs. They hung out under the eaves for a while, smoking cigarettes and talking back and forth, though the rain drowned out the actual conversation before it got to the Doctor or Pandora. Once they stubbed out the ends of the cigarettes and pulled their coats up over their heads, Pandora picked up her box and made to follow them, but the Doctor put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"Aren't we going to follow them?" Pandora asked, not understanding.

"Only individuals have been abducted so far," the Doctor responded. "Svetlana was picked up when she fell behind. This group is large and loud. I don't think they'll be targeted."

Pandora sighed and set her box back down. She folded her arms across it and laid her chin on top. "So. More waiting then."

More than an hour more passed before another group left a different club, further to the West. There were only three of them this time. The Doctor slapped Pandora's arm with the back of his hand to get her attention. "Get ready," he said.

Pandora stood and grabbed her box by the handle, quickly alert.

The three men, each in their early twenties and dressed in casual high-water suits with white shirts, skinny ties and hats, stood under the lights outside the club laughing. One did a little spin, placing one hand atop his fedora, then stood on tip-toe with his knees bent, and froze in place for a moment. The other two thought this was hilarious. They all traded mock punches, then stepped out into the rain, unconcerned about how wet they were getting. They continued talking, laughing and dancing as they headed off West along the shoreline.

"Let's go. These are them," the Doctor said. He pulled a folding umbrella out of one of his pockets and handed it to Pandora. He pulled up his hood and looked her in the eye. "Don't get too close. We don't want them to know we're there, and more importantly, we don't want to be seen by whatever is taking them." He turned and stepped out into the rain, immediately getting soaked.

Pandora pressed a button on the handle of the umbrella, and it extended outward then snapped open. She threw it over her shoulder, hitched up her box, and followed the Doctor.

They walked quietly, a hundred feet behind the three young men. The trio were in no hurry, as they continued to joke and play-fight and sing on their way back to their rooms.

When the trio got to the bridge that Svetlana had been abducted from, the Doctor held Pandora back. "Let's give them some room…" he whispered.

They stepped onto the bridge and spread out a bit. The one in the lead went to the edge of the bridge and looked over as Pandora had done earlier in the day. He called the other two over and they stood there for a while, looking at something and talking together. After a short while, they continued on their way. Pandora caught her breath as they reached the other side, where she had found the seaweed earlier, but nothing jumped out of the dark at them, and she started breathing again.

"Okay. Let's continue," the Doctor said, and started walking toward the bridge again.

Just after the bridge, the trio took a hard right and followed a narrow paved path next to the riverbed. It led down to an elevation slightly below the bridge, and for a while they were out of sight of the Doctor and Pandora.

"Oh, no!" the Doctor said, a bad feeling coming over both him and Pandora. There was a loud cry, and the Doctor and Pandora quickened their pace and reached the bridge quickly. From there they could see that the rainfall had caused something of a flash flood in the formerly dry riverbed. A raging torrent ran beneath them and out into the sea behind them. They could see from there the path the trio had taken, but they couldn't see the young men. The Doctor abandoned all subtlety and twisted the top of his sonic screwdriver. He activated it and shone a bright white light along the path, but still couldn't see them.

He ran the rest of the way across the bridge and down to the path, the beam of his torchlight darting in all directions. He ground to a stop on the path, illuminating an area of the bank around a foot above the water's reach. Pandora reached his side and saw a fedora there on the rocky incline.

It was covered with more of the same seaweed.

* * *

Lights came on in an upstairs window of the adjoining building and silhouettes appeared against the sudden brightness. "What's going on out there?" called a voice.

The Doctor shone his light up at the sound of the voice. The man shielded his eyes for a moment, then dropped his hand. "Watch where you're pointing that, buddy," he said.

"Sorry," the Doctor called out and shut off his sonic. "There's been another disappearance." He focused his sonic on the fedora and turned it on again.

The man leaned a bit further out the window to see, then shied back from the rain. A second figure joined him and looked out as well. "Must have just happened," called the first one. "We heard a scream."

"Yes! We could see them a moment ago, then they were gone," the Doctor called back.

"How about you come in out of the rain?" called the second one. "You can use the phone here to report it."

The Doctor looked at Pandora, then back up at them. "Good idea. We'll pool our knowledge." With that, they walked around to the front of the building where there was a stairwell leading up to the second floor. The second figure was there holding the door open when they arrived.

"Aaron," he said, holding out a hand. Aaron was a man of average height and slightly more than average build. He was of Asian descent, but spoke with the accent of a man who spent his whole life in the Northeast of America. He was barefoot, wearing sweatpants and a white t-shirt with stains down the front. He apologized for his attire as the Doctor shook his hand. "Sorry, we were woken by the scream." He shook Pandora's hand as well then stepped aside to let them in and closed the door after.

There was a bleary-eyed woman with curly hair in a pony tail as well as the man they had first seen. Aaron made introductions. "This is Linda, and that's John." With better light, they could see that John was a man in his late twenties with brown hair parted in the middle and a ruddy unpleasant face. While Aaron and Linda may have been ready for bed, John was wearing a turtleneck and jeans. "We were just enjoying a bit of shore leave, but the ship sails at dawn, so we were all in bed early."

"I understand. I've been known to keep some odd hours myself," the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor and this is Pandora. You lot must belong to that research vessel outside. Let me ask you a question. Why pay for a room? Don't you have bunks on board?"

John snorted. "'Bunks'," he said. "A three by three by six cell is more like it. Four to a room. And the hot shower alone was worth the price per night. No, I'll take shore leave at any opportunity."

The Doctor nodded. "And exactly what kind of research are you doing?"

"Climate change," Aaron said. "We're studying its effect on marine species in this area."

"You're pretty nosey about our business," John said. "Weren't you here to call the authorities? Remember the abduction outside?"

"Actually I came here to get out of the rain," the Doctor replied. "We're what you might call 'abduction authorities'." The Doctor played that over in his mind, then added. "But don't call us that. Just call me the Doctor, and her Pandora, alright? Good. Now I think we may be working at very similar purposes."

"What, criminal abductions and climate change?" John asked sarcastically.

"Yes. Well, I admit at first it doesn't seem like it, but tell me, when was the last time global sustained temperatures were this high?"

"Not in recorded history," Linda said.

"And not likely since…?" the Doctor prompted.

"Well since the dinosaurs roamed, at least," Aaron added.

"Exactly. Since the Mesozoic Era," the Doctor confirmed excitedly. "Other things roamed the Earth at that time, and more importantly swam its waters. You are seeing drastic changes in the habits and types of undersea life as a reaction to the changes, yes?"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with the abductions?" John said, his face growing redder.

"Is there a marine biologist in the house?" the Doctor asked and pulled the fedora they had just found out of a pocket and slammed it on the table. It was still festooned with seaweed and other marine gunk. "Sorry, I've always wanted to say that."

Linda got up and sat at the table. She was mesmerized by the hat. "Someone get me a light," she said without looking up. She delicately gripped the brim of the hat and turned it to see the seaweed better.

Aaron reacted quickly and started digging through a duffle bag while John looked over her shoulder. "What is it?" he asked.

Linda looked impatient. "I need better light." Aaron ran over with a torch and illuminated the hat. Linda gasped and looked up at John. "Tweezers."

"Seriously?" John said, impatient as well.

The Doctor forestalled any further argument by handing Linda a pair of tweezers. She carefully flipped the seaweed over and leaned in closely to look at the bivalves revealed there. "That can't be," she said, barely over a whisper.

"Ahh. But it is," the Doctor smiled. He began pacing. Pandora smiled and found a comfortable spot on the couch, knowing what that meant.

"Frogs," the Doctor said. Pandora was confused, as were the others present. The Doctor looked around, surprised nobody was on board with him. "Well, you know how frogs will dig down into the mud and freeze over Winter, only to wake up when the temperatures rise again. It's been shown that they can be frozen for years in this way. Now imagine that on a global scale. Creatures living in the Adriatic sea of the Mesozoic Era who go into hibernation when the waters got too cold for them. Creatures that were used to hunting on the shores of these small islands. Turns out one year, the temperatures never get high enough, and the next year, and in this way a million years go by. Suddenly temperatures start getting warm again, and they return to old habits, only there's new prey on the island."

"But that's not possible," John argued.

"Those clams prove it is," the Doctor said with a grin nearly too broad for his face.

"What? Are those ancient clams?" Aaron asked, leaning low over Linda's shoulder.

"No, but they are deep water. Whatever deposited these on this hat had to have come from the ocean floor. Nothing alive today would have done that.

"That's a pretty big leap…" Aaron said, trying to wrap his head around it.

Linda pried a clam off the seaweed using the tweezers. It shut a little tighter and expelled some sea water in the process. "But the proof is right here. Unless you've got another explanation."

"Well, no," Aaron admitted. "But I'm not prepared to accept an ancient predator hibernating for thirty million years."

"Well," the Doctor said, "it's just a hypothesis. Easily proved. And as it turns out, by something you were planning on doing tomorrow anyway."

"What are you proposing?" John asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"You leave at dawn, just as you were saying, only you have two extra crew members on board," the Doctor said.

"I can't speak for the captain," Aaron said.

"Give me the chance to convince him. I'll make it worth his while."

"I think I can promise that much," Aaron agreed.

"One other thing," the Doctor said, coughing embarrassedly, "mind if we spend the night? We didn't have a chance to secure lodging before the town closed down."

* * *

They ended up agreeing, but it turned out, there were only two rooms in this place, and John, low man in the pecking order, was already taking up the couch. Pandora and the Doctor had to bunch up their wet jackets for pillows and sleep on the shag carpet. As far as sleeping arrangements went however, both had had far worse.

Pandora wasn't ready to go to sleep yet, too many questions going around in her head. She laid awake thinking about it for the better part of an hour until she heard the sound of John snoring. She rolled over and called out in a whisper, "Doctor, are you awake?"

The Doctor rolled over and lifted his head.

"You know what this is, don't you? It's not just some hypothetical creature, is it?" Pandora asked.

The Doctor hesitated a moment before answering. "Yeah. I know what it is. You remember when I was talking about the Venusians, I said Silurians ruled Earth at the time?"

"And you think it's them?"

"Well, a species of them anyway. Back in the sixties, someone called them 'Sea Devils' and the name stuck. Frankly, I don't know what they call themselves."

"But they're not just animals, right?" Pandora asked.

"Oh no. They're intelligent. And more technically advanced than humans are now. What they're doing taking people, I have no clue, but we'll find out tomorrow. Trust me." With that he rolled back over.

Pandora wasn't fully satisfied, but she didn't expect any more answers, so she laid back down and tried to sleep.

Somewhere before dawn, in what felt like minutes after Pandora fell asleep, an alarm went off and the day began. The Doctor had his still damp hoodie back on, and was zipped into his long pants. As they were getting dressed there was a knock at the door. John went to answer it and returned with a covered tray which he set on the table. They had arranged a breakfast of sliced meats, cheeses and breads. They made coffee in the apartment's coffee machine and packed quickly while Aaron settled the bill.

The horizon was brightening, and there was a flurry of activity on the deck of the ship as the crew prepared to cast off. A blonde man in a thick turtleneck was giving commands for launch.

"That's the captain," Aaron said needlessly.

Linda and John headed toward their bunks to put their bags away, while Aaron led the Doctor and Pandora up to meet the captain.

"Permission to come aboard!" the Doctor called as they approached.

The captain finished what he was saying to a crewman before looking over at them, annoyed. "Who are these, Aaron?" he asked.

"This is Pandora, and the Doctor," Aaron said, "They have a theory about global warming that dove-tails nicely with our expedition, and were hoping to join us today."

"Oh yeah, what's this theory of yours?"

"Well," the Doctor said, "It's long and complicated and I don't want to delay your sailing but it has to do with why we're seeing a species of deep sea clam showing up on the shore of this little island."

Aaron looked at the Doctor strangely, but said to the captain, "It's true. Linda confirmed it."

The captain sighed. "Ja, sure." He stuck out his hand. "I am called Lukas. Captain Weber to my crew. Welcome aboard the Atlantis." The Doctor shook his hand, then Pandora. "Now if you'll stay out of the way, we have work to do."

* * *

The Doctor and Pandora found a common area below decks while the crew put out to sea. After the ship cleared the shelf, some of the crew members made their way down there to play cards or darts or to read. By that time, they'd already heard all about the Doctor's story of ancient creatures coming from the ocean's depth to prey on the unwary.

A group of sailors sat down with the two of them to trade stories. It turns out the locals have been telling stories of creatures rising from the depths for centuries. Of powerful leviathans bringing down ships on storm-tossed nights. Of enormous beings that laid waste entire villages leaving not a single soul, living or dead. It seemed everyone had a story they had heard, and some even recounted personal experiences.

Pandora was getting pretty spooked by what were essentially ghost stories, but the Doctor tired of it quickly. "I'll be up on the bridge," he said and took his leave.

He found Captain Weber in the pilot house. The captain looked over his shoulder when the Doctor entered, but returned to the view out the front windows without a word. The Doctor had a good look around the pilot house before saying anything. Directly in front of the captain were a pair of flat screen monitors, one showing a live sonar graphic, and the other one listed the status of various ship functions. On the glass window, dead center, was a large microphone which the captain used, by press of a button, to relay orders to various parts of the ship. Speakers lined the edges between ceiling and wall, spaced out such that without looking, the captain could tell what area of the ship the response was coming from.

The ship control console was directly to his right, with buttons, dials and scopes, and anachronistically, a series of wooden blocks in a peg board that indicated heading and had to be updated by hand. Currently the blocks were set to 0,6,8. Overhead was a large magnetic compass, and at the back of the room was a plaque dedicating this vessel to the original ship Atlantis of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

"So, how does a German national become the captain of an American Navy vessel?", the Doctor asked at last.

Weber glanced back at the Doctor again, then back at the sea. "This is not a warship, Doctor, it is a vehicle of exploration. And to answer your question, I worked my way up. I served on six previous expeditions and earned my place." He turned to face the Doctor, hands clasped behind his back, just before the ship made a hard turn to port. He watched the Doctor coolly keep his balance as the ship listed. He adopted a thoughtful expression. "So, now that we have time for proper introductions, exactly what kind of Doctor are you?"

"Marine biology today. Yesterday I was a Doctor of Humanitarian Service. The day before that it was Astrophysics. Before the day is out it may be Paleobiology as well. Do you mind if I have a look at your sonar?"

The captain stepped out of the way and indicated the sonar with an outstretched hand. The Doctor walked up to it and was but a moment before he started tsking. "Your software is way out of date. You need to keep up with the patches. I hope you don't mind…" The Doctor pulled out his sonic and twisted it, then pointed it at the sonar screen and activated it. The light on the end remained unlit, but it made its buzzing noise. The screen fritzed for a moment then went blank.

"What are you doing?" Captain Weber came to stand next to the Doctor looking on with concern.

"Not to worry. It just needs to reboot. You see, a sonar ping bounces all around, but the software you had was only set up to detect the direct return. All the other bounces were just treated as noise. That's why it was so fuzzy. There!" He deactivated the sonic and slipped it back into his inside hoodie pocket.

The sonar blinked back to life, the familiar blobs of yellow and green showed up, but in greater relief. Pixilated blocks were now sharp edges, and indistinct areas could now be recognized for what they really were. "This software update can actually recognize the fuzz as the original ping bounced off other objects and back a moment later. It uses subsurface back-scatter algorithms to better refine the true shape of objects," the Doctor explained. A sunken ship could be seen here, a discarded anchor there. Then other colors began popping onto the screen. Red indicated fish, as what was clearly a shoal of sardines appeared on screen. Plant life showed up in a lighter green, strong currents in blue, man-made objects in dark green and natural formations in yellow.

"Oh," the Doctor added, "I also wrote some pattern matching software. Since the object shapes are more discernible, the software can color code them for you. And yes, I'm also a Doctor of Computer Science. You're welcome."

"You did all of this with that wand?" the captain asked, astounded.

Instead of answering the captain's question, the Doctor changed the subject. He pressed a button on the side of the display several times to zoom out and asked, "Where were you planning to head today?"

Captain Weber had been staring at the sonar, but tore himself away to grab some papers he had scattered across the controls. "We had identified three points of interest before we had to head back to land for supplies. We are headed for the closest of them now."

The Doctor accepted the papers and leafed through them, nodding.

The captain apologized. "I'm kicking myself now, they were taken with the old sonar software."

"Oh, not to worry, I can read these just fine." He held up one of them. "Do you mind if I help refine the search a bit? This area looks like the general spot Pandora and I need to study."

"I'm sorry Doctor," the captain said. "I thank you for the refinements to the sonar, but I can't allow your mission to take precedence over that of this crew."

"Ah, but captain, your crew will find this area fascinating. I guarantee it. And my findings may very well provide the irrefutable proof you need to effect the changes you seek."

The captain considered the Doctor's words, but seemed torn. Before he could speak and potentially say no, the Doctor added, "And full credit for any discoveries go to your team."

* * *

The Doctor spent the rest of the morning huddled over the sonar, watching the movement of the red objects on screen. When the ship got to the location they intended to work in, the captain called to slow the engines and signaled the Doctor. The two stood over the sonar as the ship began a slow back and forth pattern across the search area.

Once or twice the Doctor pointed to some feature that looked interesting at first, but as more of it appeared on screen he dismissed it. Finally after a couple hours of this, he and the captain watched as a relatively flat area, deep beneath them, suddenly opened up into a craggy area with a group of even deeper holes, almost perfectly circular. The Doctor tapped the screen excitedly. "Yahtzee," he said.

"Are these lava tubes?" the captain asked. "But they are so regular. And these two are so large."

"Lava tubes," the Doctor confirmed. "And there is no telling how deep they run until we get down there." He seemed to catch himself in his excitement. "Think of the science!" he said in an attempt to cover it.

The captain pressed the com button and gave the order. "Engines full stop. Submersible team to ready, prepare Alvin for launch."

"Pandora and I will need to be aboard. I'll help get Alvin ready," the Doctor said as he left the pilot house.

* * *

There was a huge crane at the stern of the Atlantis, and a crew of six were busy hooking it to the top of the large white and red submersible, Alvin. The fore of the sub was a sphere with viewing ports in front and at sixty degree angles to the sides. Atop the sphere was a red horseshoe shaped hatch for entering the submersible, and around the front were a series of lights and video cameras. Directly in front and under the sphere was a large collection basket and a pair of manipulator arms, each carrying another video camera. Aft of the sphere, the craft lengthened and came to a point surrounded by six thrusters.

Another two crew members were busy removing charging cables. The submersible was entirely electric.

The Doctor found Aaron supervising the preparations, and walked to stand with him. "Will you be going under?" the Doctor asked.

Aaron was startled to find the Doctor at his shoulder, but recovered quickly. "No, my place is here. I just make sure operations run smoothly. John, whom you've met as well as Juno, Bettina and Samuel will crew the sub."

"That's a four man sub, isn't it? Pandora and I will be on it, so you'll have to cut two of them."

Aaron sighed heavily. "Well, Samuel is the best pilot, and Juno is the only biologist on board qualified to operate the manipulator arms, so it better be those two."

"I'm a fully qualified pilot, so if I took Samuel's place, who would you want?" the Doctor asked.

"Better be John and Juno then. Actually that's a bit of a relief. John would have been livid if I cut him from the team. He obviously feels threatened in his position, and frankly I think he feels like he should have my job."

"Understood. Is there anything I can do to help with preparations?"

"Our teams know their job, and work quite efficiently. We've got it Doctor. But if you'd like to bring your equipment aboard, we'll be ready to launch in fifteen."

* * *

Pandora was having trouble with a couple of the crew members when the Doctor got back belowdecks. "Then we're going to make room, because I'm not leaving it behind!" she was yelling.

The crew members backed away, surprised at this response to what they considered a reasonable statement of fact.

"What's going on here?" the Doctor asked upon entering.

The crew looked relieved when they saw the Doctor. Surely he'd see reason. One of them spoke up. "There simply isn't room on Alvin for a chest of that size. She'll have to leave it here."

"That chest contains vital scientific equipment necessary to our expedition. What can we do to make room?" the Doctor responded.

"How about we just pull out what you need from the chest? We may find room for smaller individual packets," they tried to compromise.

"No!" Pandora cried, holding the box close to her chest.

The Doctor held out his hands for calm. "The contents of that chest are highly proprietary, while we'll share the results of our investigation, the means must remain undisclosed."

"I'm sorry, but there is only 4.8 cubic meters of space in the Personnel Sphere. Barely enough room for the four passengers and the required equipment. There simply isn't room for a box of that size."

"Perhaps then it's time to redefine what is 'required'."

"Maritime regulations require-" the crewman started, exasperated.

The Doctor cut him off, holding up his psychic paper. "I think you'll find this trumps maritime regulations."

The crewman threw up his hands. "Fine, but if it were me, I wouldn't go down in that thing with you." With that the two crewmen left the room.

Finally alone, the Doctor turned on Pandora. "Now, I have never asked what's in the box, nor have I questioned your guardianship, and I'm not breaking that now. However I need to ask, if I could guarantee the box's integrity, secure and inviolate, would it's presence aboard Alvin be in any way negotiable?"

"Absolutely not, Doctor. If I leave it with strangers, they will be tempted to open it," she said, still clutching the box defensively.

"Okay, that's what I thought," he said with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. If worst comes to worst, we'll toss John over the side before your box."

* * *

Worst didn't come to worst, and the Doctor managed to remove several 'required' items, including a pair of harpoon guns and a box of safety flares.

John, Juno, Pandora and the Doctor boarded Alvin, and it was lowered over the water, then detached to drop the last couple meters into the sea. The sea felt rough at the surface from within the cramped space, but once the submersible sank below the waves, there was an otherworldly calm to the tiny vessel. There was a constant stream of radio chatter with the captain and Aaron, as the Doctor and Juno ran through the required tests. After the formalities had been concluded, the Doctor dove steeply into the murky depths. He left the exterior lights off, even after descending below the range that sunlight permeated, navigating solely by sonar. During the prep phase, he had given it the same treatment as the ship-board sonar, and Juno marveled over the clarity and specificity of the readings.

"Two hundred meters," the Doctor called out.

"How deep is it here?" Pandora asked curiously. Her eyes were glued to the port observation viewport. Interior lights only illuminate a few inches outside the window, but she watched every particle that passed her range of vision.

"Just over twelve hundred meters," John replied, looking out the starboard viewport.

"Four hundred meters," the Doctor said.

"Wow," Pandora whispered.

Juno looked over at Pandora strangely. "If you don't mind my asking, just what is your area of expertise?"

Pandora realized that she hadn't been acting particularly professional all this time. She bought time by nervously asking, "Why do you ask?"

"It's just that you act as though this is your first time below the waves," Juno added.

"Pandora is Earth's foremost expert on exobiology. She knows more about hypothetical alien species than any other living human," the Doctor said over his shoulder. "Six hundred meters," he added.

If by 'hypothetical alien species' you mean the Doctor, and all the aliens she had met from Eight Legs to Drendarins, he might be telling the truth, Pandora thought.

"What a waste of time," John said. "And just why do we need her down here replacing Bettina who can be of actual use?"

"If my theory is correct, she will not simply be useful, but instrumental," the Doctor said.

John and Juno were quiet as each wondered why it was again that the Doctor was calling the shots.

"Six hundred meters," the Doctor dutifully announced, and a minute or so later, "Eight hundred meters."

"What exactly _is_ your theory, anyway?" John finally asked.

"Well, I say theory… Really more of a dreaded certainty. One thousand meters. Ah! Look there. The sea floor is showing up on sonar." The tops of ancient volcano cones showed up first, and slowly widened as the sub descended. The remains of millennia old cinder cones showed up next, and finally extinct smoker vents before the vast plane itself filled the scope.

"What was that?" Pandora asked fearfully.

"Nothing on sonar, what did you see?" the Doctor asked.

Suddenly the vessel was thrown violently to starboard. Pandora fell backward onto John and his head hit the glass of the observation window. Juno's reflexes were quick enough that she grabbed hold of the Doctor's seat to keep from falling. "What did we hit?" Juno yelled.

"There's nothing on the sonar!" the Doctor yelled back. He flipped a bank of switches and the exterior lights came on.

"Guys, that's our communications transducer," John said, pointing at a twisted chunk of metal sinking away from them.

Pandora righted herself, eyes darting from one viewport to another. A vast shape moved past the starboard viewport. "There it is again!" she said, pointing. Juno screamed as she saw the creature, large as any shark with a reptilian snout and six limbs. It darted past in an instant, propelled by a thick tail.

"A Myrka!" the Doctor yelled. "Hold on tight, I'm going to try some evasive maneuvers." The Doctor threw the sub into a steep dive, then banked hard to port. Unfortunately, the Myrka was far more maneuverable. There was another collision, and the sub tilted backward and gained speed as if it were being pulled through the water in the grip of the beast's teeth.

Everybody picked a viewport and stared out through it, trying to get a glimpse of the beast that was now controlling their descent.

The Doctor watched the sonar as the spires of ancient hydrothermal vents whizzed past at incredible speed. "Twelve hundred feet!" he called out. "Brace for impact!"

Only then did he see a large opening in the plane below. The creature was dragging them into one of the lava tubes.

They passed through the opening and were enclosed on all sides by the rock walls of the tube. There was a crash on the starboard side as they collided with the wall of the lava tube, then debris filled the viewports, and they could see no more. Then there was a second crash, and the vessel was thrown onto its side. The passengers flew up against the ceiling, then fell against the port side of the submersible where it came to rest.

There was silence, except for the sparking of damaged equipment. Luckily the glass of the viewports had held. "Is everyone alright?" the Doctor asked.

John put a hand to his head and came away with blood on his fingers. Nevertheless, he nodded his head.

Juno cradled her left arm, "I'm going to be badly bruised in the morning, but I'll live."

"Pandora?" the Doctor asked.

"Scared, but okay," she said. Pandora located her box and clutched it to herself like a safety blanket.

"There's light out there," John said.

Everyone jumped to the closest viewport, aside from the port side which was pressed up against the rock floor.

"Just the exterior illumination, surely…" Juno said.

"No," the Doctor replied. "The electrical systems are out. But there is light out there. _And_ air."

He reached forward to put his hands on the hatch.

"Wait, are you sure it's safe?" John asked.

"Of course not. But the coms are out, and we aren't piloting Alvin out of here. If you've got a better idea, let's hear it. Or we can wait here for the Myrka to return."

"What is a Myrka anyway, and how do you know about them?"

The Doctor let go of the hatch and turned to face them. "A Myrka is a creature as old as the dinosaurs. You might call them pets to the Silurians. They are graceful in water, but clumsy on land. Don't let that fool you into thinking they aren't dangerous though, as a single touch can deliver a massive jolt of electricity, killing you instantly. Your best bet is to stay on land and outrun them."

He turned back to the hatch and braced to turn the wheel. "And what exactly are Silurians?" John asked.

The Doctor sighed and turned around again. "Lizard people from the Triassic Period. I've met two sub-species, one land based, another amphibious. They have rather advanced technology, but went into hibernation when global temperatures got too cold. Now that they are warming up again, The advance guard is emerging. There. All caught up now. We should really go."

"Then why aren't they called Triassics?"

The Doctor ignored him and instead turned back to the hatch. Before anyone could ask any more questions, he twisted the wheel and opened it with a loud clang. He stuck his head out first, and satisfied that the coast was clear, he crawled out. He turned and helped Juno out, then Pandora shoved her box through and the Doctor set it aside to help her crawl out. Lastly, John crawled out, ignoring the Doctor's offered hand.

The Doctor stood up and surveyed the area. The lava tube was wide enough to fit two lanes of traffic, and plunged into the water just behind the beached submersible. In the other direction it led upward for a ways, then crested and descended again. The light they had seen from inside Alvin was coming from over that hill.

He looked around and surveyed the group, then nodded and said, "Let's go."

They trudged up the hill and stopped at the peak.

"No way," John said in awe.

Just beyond the rise the natural rock of the lava tube was replaced by a worked stone hallway, lit by some sort of recessed artificial tube. The hallway extended into the distance to the limit of their vision, branching off at even intervals.

The Doctor started toward the hallway, but Juno caught his arm. "What are we expecting to do here?"

"We're going to find them, and we're going to talk to them. If we can negotiate a peace between our species, we do that. If we can't, we get them back into - "

"Doctor! Look out!" Pandora called out.

The Doctor turned to find a group of creatures, two meters in height with scaly black skin and a beak for a mouth standing in the entrance to the hallway. Each was wearing a sort of frock made of netting, and each had one hand up at shoulder height holding a silvery dish pointed in their direction.

"We come in peace, representing the humans of Earth," the Doctor said, holding up his empty hands.

The Sea Devils fired their weapons at the four of them. The Doctor, Pandora, John and Juno all slumped to the ground.


	3. Dagon

The Doctor woke up in an upright position. He tried to put a hand to his head, but found his arm was strapped down. He opened his eyes and looked around.

He was in some sort of laboratory, ankles and wrists in cuffs, with one big metal brace across his chest. Next to him was Pandora and beyond her, Juno and John. They were all strapped to a sort of table with a hinge in the center so it could be swung into a horizontal or vertical position. They were slowly regaining consciousness. There was a long table in front of them with liquids bubbling in beakers on one side and sharp, exploratory instruments on the other. In the middle was what looked like a notepad and of all things, a mug of hot tea. Just beyond the mug was Pandora's box.

Off to the side, against the wall were four booths with frost-crusted windows. Each contained one of the Americans who's abduction they witnessed, plus a woman, presumably Svetlana. Next to the booths was a shelf containing jars of what appeared to be human brains. Additionally there was a body, mid-autopsy on a table like theirs, except in the horizontal position.

As the Doctor was taking in his surroundings, a Sea Devil came into view from behind and between him and Pandora. It stopped a few paces in front of them and turned around, three-fingered hands clasped in front of it excitedly, and what appeared to be a smile on its beak-like mouth.

"What do you intend to do with us?" the Doctor asked.

The Sea Devil's jaw dropped. "You can _speak_! Well, I knew you could speak of course, the others all tried to say something, but you have learned our language! I never could have predicted it!"

It was the Doctor's turn to be surprised. "Predicted it?"

"I am a scientist, my dear, uh… Actually, what do you call yourself?"

"The Doctor."

"Interesting choice, naming your species the Doctor. Anyway, I-"

"No, no. I'm called the Doctor. This species is called 'human'."

"Ah. Human. Tell me: How far have you come? Have you spread beyond this island? Have you developed mathematics?" the Sea Devil queried. He walked to the table and selected one of his sharp instruments.

"Are you kidding me?" John said. "'Beyond this island'?"

"We cover the entire planet!" Juno said.

"Oh ho!" the scientist said excitedly. He walked up to Juno and grabbed her face with one hand while he stuck his instrument in through a nostril with the other. Juno gagged.

"Easy does it… This won't hurt… Ah!" he said and withdrew the probe. "Endothermic! Marvelous! Marvelous," he said and returned the probe to his workbench.

"What do you hope to gain by experimenting on us?" the Doctor asked.

The Sea Devil turned around in the middle of selecting another instrument. "Why, my dear boy! You are the end result of the greatest experiment ever!" He raised a dismissive finger and took a long drink from his mug of tea before turning to speak to them again.

"You see, a long time ago, a meteor - that's like a giant rock in space - was going to crash into the Earth. By my calculations, we would survive the impact, but the dust in the atmosphere would lower global temperatures to levels we'd never survive. Plans were made to enter suspension until temperatures rose to livable levels again. But I wondered, could there be an intelligent creature that could survive such low temperatures? One that would thrive and dominate its environment?"

He looked around at them with pride.

"Wait, you don't mean…?" John asked, incredulous.

"Yes!" the creature responded. "In the days before our planned hibernation, I trapped a particularly large, er, a rodent of some kind, and injected him with some of our genetic potential. I knew it would take millions of years for these genes to spread and take full effect, for the creature to evolve into its final form, but I was in the enviable position to be here when it concluded, and here you are! I must admit I'm disappointed that you've kept to land when seventy percent of the world's surface is water, but that's neither here nor there."

Pandora finally spoke up. "You… created humanity?"

He waved his arms in a self-deprecating manner. "Well, I… directed your evolution. I… enhanced your potential. But, my dear girl, you have performed admirably. Tell me, have humans learned to use tools?"

Everybody started arguing at once, denying the possibility and complaining about their captivity or the lunacy of even talking to this creature.

Just then a door slid open and four more Sea Devils entered the room. Three of them were armed with the same silvery disks that these creatures used as weapons. The fourth one was unarmed, and the robe he wore was of finer material. He had a thick necklace of gold plates that joined in the center and ran down the length of his robe. His scales were of a lighter green color and where the others appeared enraged, this one was serene.

The armed creature in front stormed in and confronted the scientist. "And now these beasts are coming to us! Thausix, when are you going to admit that this experiment of your will endanger us all!"

"Oh, General Criasix! Always, you see threats! Always with you it is war! Are you really threatened by my walking dolphins?" Thausix responded.

"They _are_ a threat, and you are blind if you can't see that!" the General said. "You understand nothing. They are building machines that take them to our very waters!"

"Machines! How wonderful!" Thausix turned toward the humans excitedly.

"Senator Doamix, surely _you_ can see the threat posed by these creatures?" the General demanded.

The Senator held out his hands placatingly and opened his beak to speak, but the Doctor beat him to it.

"Senator Doamix, if I may, the humans are not a threat to your people. They have learned many things during your long hibernation, and one thing they can do well is live peaceably with their neighbors. There are 195 countries of humans, and 193 are represented in a global peace-keeping group. But at the same time, if you moved against them militarily, you would find them a formidable enemy."

"You see!" the General said, "He speaks of peace, but makes threats! Their technology is primitive compared to ours. We should strike now and wipe them out."

"They may seem primitive, but they are clever, and they are numerous. They have a talent for war and they command mighty machines on both land and sea," the Doctor tried to reason.

"Then we will unleash our Myrka upon them!" the General yelled, approaching the Doctor to stand face to face.

"General, even they would be no match for a modern-day human tank or submarine! But if you talk to them, they can be quite reasonable. Look, they have spent the last three thousand years fighting amongst themselves. They have built up the technology to destroy the very Earth several times over. If you came forth as an enemy, humanity would be united for the first time ever. Against you! And I hate to even _imagine_ what a terrifying sight they would be."

General Criasix stood silently, staring into the Doctor's eyes. Finally he nodded. "I sense the truth in what you say. Perhaps we cannot defeat the humans in a protracted war. So then, we only have one choice."

The Doctor relaxed. It was rare that they saw reason so quickly.

The general turned and walked back to join the other Sea Devils. "We must awaken Lord Dagon."

"What? No!" the scientist said, horrified. "They'll be wiped out! Our god cannot be stopped!"

"No!" the Doctor called out, struggling against his bonds. "You can't!"

"You see, Senator? His bravado is gone now. Come. Let us discuss preparations for the Great Awakening." The general turned to the two Sea Devil soldiers who had come in with him and the senator. "You two remain with the prisoners and find out more about their strengths. By whatever means necessary." He and the senator turned to leave. The scientist hurried to catch up with them.

"Senator! At least consider the alternative!" the scientist was saying.

"Senator!" the Doctor called, struggling to free himself. "You must listen!" But the door slid shut behind the Sea Devils, and they were gone.

"You!" said one of the soldiers, pointing at John and drawing his weapon. "Tell me more about these 'tanks' and 'submarines'."

"Go to hell," John said.

"Our weapons can cause pain, render you unconscious, or they can be set to kill. Tell me now about your war machines," the Sea Devil threatened.

"They don't know anything. These are scientists. I'm the one you want," the Doctor said.

"Then perhaps these ones are irrelevant. Tell me what you know, or I will kill this one." The Sea Devil stepped closer to John, his weapon held to the side of John's face. John closed his eyes and turned away.

"Stop it! I'll tell you what you want to know. You don't need to threaten anyone!" the Doctor said.

"Sergeant," the second Sea Devil said. He pointed at Pandora. "This one keeps looking at this box over here."

The sergeant looked from Pandora to the box. Pandora pulled hard at her cuff. "No," she pleaded.

"What's in the box?" the sergeant asked. "Is it a weapon?"

"No!" Pandora flailed violently. The table shook on its pivot with the force of her movements.

"The box contains scientific equipment only!" the Doctor interjected. "There is nothing of interest to you in there."

"I think it's a weapon," the sergeant said. "Mailix, open the box."

The second Sea Devil walked around the table and turned the box toward himself.

"No. Don't. Don't. Please don't," Pandora said. Tears were streaming down her face and she was nearly hyperventilating.

"It's locked, sergeant," Mailix called. He picked up the box and brought it around to the front of the table.

"Stand back," the sergeant said and pointed his weapon at the lock.

"You can't! You mustn't!" Pandora cried.

The sergeant fired his weapon. There was no visible beam, but there was an audible whirring sound like a standing mixer at low speed, and the lock began to smoke. Bits of metal began to drip off the edges of it. The Doctor looked on with mixed fear and excitement.

Suddenly Pandora's back arched to the limits of her confinement. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her mouth opened wide in a silent scream. Then a brilliant white light, too bright to bear, poured out of her. The Doctor had to shut his eyes and turn away. But just for an instant, just before he had to shut out that light, he could see a second figure overlapping Pandora. A being of pure white, it's head bald, with immense eyes of a slightly less bright white. It's body, rail thin, emerged from Pandora like a butterfly from a chrysalis.

Then the light was replaced by a flooding darkness, and the Doctor passed out for the second time today.

* * *

The three humans and the Time Lord came to their senses again some time later. The box still lay on the table with its lock somewhat the worse for wear, but still intact, and the two Sea Devil soldiers lay upon the ground, unmoving.

The Doctor took a moment to look around. "Is everybody alright?" he asked.

Pandora groaned. "My head is properly pounding, but otherwise, I'm okay," she said, putting one hand to her head.

The Doctor saw it immediately. "Pandora! Your arm! It's free!"

Pandora looked down at both her arms, then the full length of her body. "I'm completely free!" She looked very confused. "Doctor, how did that happen? I don't remember…"

"Never mind that now, Pandora. Take my sonic from my hoodie pocket and free the rest of us."

Pandora stepped down off the table and swayed for a moment. She caught herself, and grabbed the edge of the Doctor's table to ensure her footing. The Doctor looked her in the eye, concern in his expression, and she smiled faintly and nodded. "It's wearing off already."

She reached inside his hoodie and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "You've never shown me how to work it. I've just been guessing up until now."

"Twist the top to change the color," the Doctor explained. "Red, green, blue, white, ultraviolet and infrared. Red is for disassembling things or picking locks. Green for welding, connecting, screwing things in. Blue for scanning, ultraviolet for sending signals and infrared for complex programming tasks. It's slightly psychic. You have to think about what you want it to do. Pull back on the ring to change the band, or frequency, and pull it all the way back to work on wood."

"What does the white setting do?" Pandora asked.

"That's a torch. It can also play music. Red for now though, I believe time may be of the essence."

"Oh, yes, of course." Pandora twisted the sonic to red and pointed it at the Doctor's cuffs. She pushed the button to activate it and the cuffs popped open. She did the same with the band across his chest, then the cuffs on his ankles. Once he was free, she clapped the sonic into his hand and ran over to see to her box.

The Doctor freed Juno and John, then bent to examine one of the prone Sea Devils. He felt for a pulse at its throat, then lifted one arm and felt at its arm pit. Finally, he got on all fours and put an ear to its chest.

He shook his head and stood. "There's not a moment to lose," the Doctor said. "We need to find the Senator and convince him there can be peace between your peoples."

"No," John said. "We need to get back to Alvin and the surface! We need to warn the world!"

"There's no telling what damage the ship suffered when the Myrka attacked. We can't risk the ship right now. And what sense is there telling people they're about to be wiped out, if they only end up getting wiped out anyway? We have a chance to prevent this, but only if we remain."

"But surely you can do that, Doctor — What do you need us for?" Juno asked.

"I'm not of this Earth! I can't be the one that represents you. When it comes time to sit down at a table and discuss a mutually beneficial solution for Sea Devils and humans, there have to be humans making the decisions. You may not feel that you're ideal candidates for the job, but by virtue of being here today, the responsibility falls to you. And I can think of no one better that two people who have devoted their careers to the preservation and conservation of all life, human and otherwise." He stepped back and let them consider his words.

"Okay," Juno said simply.

John looked around at Juno, then Pandora, then the Doctor and finally said, "Fine." He stooped and picked up the Sea Devils weapons.

The Doctor held out a cautionary hand. "Nothing good will come of that," he said.

John narrowed his eyes. "All the same, I'd rather have it and not need it." He offered the second one to Pandora.

Pandora looked at the weapon, then up at the Doctor. "No, thank you," she said.

The Doctor stepped between them. "I don't want you hauling off and shooting the wrong creature just because it's different."

"I'm not a hot-head, Doctor," John said defensively. "I won't shoot unless I have to." He offered the second to Juno.

She looked down at the dead Sea Devils and shivered. "I don't think so, John."

"Suit yourself," John said and tucked the second one into his belt as well.

The Doctor walked to the door and operated the panel to open it. The coast was clear, so he motioned for the others to follow him. Pandora carried her box out after him, then Juno followed, and John guarded the rear.

"I don't think many of them are awake yet. If we're lucky, it's just the senator, the general and the scientist," the Doctor whispered as he rounded a corner. He passed by several identical doors and hallways, then turned down another as if he knew where he was going.

"If we're really lucky, we'll run into the scientist and not the general," he added.

* * *

"If I may be allowed to speak," the scientist said to the senator as they walked along a hallway identical to the one the humans were currently sneaking down. "It is premature to talk of war. We have only just begun to study these humans. We know nothing about them. Would we also wage war against the fish that swim in our seas, or the sheep that graze on the shores? You only have half the story, and from someone whose profession is war!"

"Yes, I see your point, Thausix. You think these humans may have something to offer us?" the senator said.

" _Offer us_?" the general interjected, incredulous. "The fish and the sheep offer us themselves as food. Are you suggesting we eat these humans?"

"No, of course not," the scientist said. "They are intelligent, they've learned to communicate with us, who knows what they may have developed that our artists and engineers have never dreamed of?"

They stopped in front of the closed door and the senator took a moment to organize his thoughts.

"Perhaps we should hear this Doctor out," the senator said. The general opened his beak to object, but the senator held out a hand to silence him. "General Criasix, I have heard what you have to say on the subject. The Doctor has spent time among both our peoples. If there are still objections after hearing him out, we would still have time to wake Dagon then."

The senator put out a hand to activate the door. It slid open with a soft hiss, and he stepped inside. "Doctor, we have decided to…" He broke off in mid-sentence. The tables were empty, and the two Sea Devil soldiers lay dead upon the ground.

"Dagon take them all!" the general shouted when he saw the bodies. "Do you see now? This is what humanity is like. This is what they will do to us, if we don't strike first! Our only advantage is that they don't know we are here. If we sue for peace, we give up that advantage. If the escaped humans get a signal to the surface, we lose everything!"

The senator stood silently through the general's rant, just staring at the two bodies left unceremoniously where they had fallen.

"General," he said flatly, "prepare to wake Lord Dagon."

* * *

Pandora was certain that they were lost. If only they had a way of marking the turns so they could at least find their way back. If only they had some idea where the sub was as a reference point. The other two didn't know the Doctor the way she did. He stalked these corridors as if he grew up here, and he projected this sense of self-confidence that made them trust him, that made them feel better, not so lost. But she'd been around him long enough to know that even when he was making it all up as he went along, he still acted like that, and at this point she felt sure he had no better idea where they were than any of them did.

They turned another corner and reached a dead end. There was one door leading off to the side at the very end of the hallway, and with just the slightest hesitation, the Doctor walked right up to it. Once the others had gathered outside the door, the Doctor nodded once and activated it.

The door opened to a balcony overlooking a vast crevice. The far wall was probably a mile off and partially obscured by a slight haze, though artificial lighting lined both sides.

The four of the stepped out onto the balcony and held onto the railing. On both sides of the balcony were a set of stairs zig-zagging down. Looking over the edge, they could see what looked like tanning beds, thousands upon thousands of tanning beds lined up in regular patterns embedded in the rocky cliff face and extending down and out as far as they could see. Each one had a light in the center of the unit, and they realized that the lights they were seeing across the chasm to the other side were from these same devices.

"Millions," Pandora said without meaning to, correcting her internal dialog. "There are millions of them."

"Each one contains a sleeping Sea Devil," the Doctor confirmed. "At any moment, the general could send the signal to awaken them and there will be an instant army of advanced fighters with futuristic weaponry on Europe's door step." He looked both John and Juno in the eyes. "They will sweep the surface clean, killing everything. And those weapons of mass destruction that your leaders would never use, because they would destroy themselves in the process? The Sea Devils will use them, because, who cares about the land? So what if the atmosphere is toxic?"

He stood silently, letting them take in the enormity of what they were facing.

"Even if humans do eventually win, a war with the Sea Devils will take an enormous toll."

Pandora's first thought was, 'Then why are we wasting time here? We need to stop the general!', but then she understood. The Doctor _had_ led them here on purpose. He needed to convince the Sea Devils that peace was their only option, but now, the humans understood it too.

* * *

Five floors below, the general was activating select hibernation pods at a control center while the scientist worked to convince the senator to forestall war.

His soldiers stepped out of their pods, disoriented for a moment, but when the general handed them their weapons, they were all business and ready to go.

"Yes, there was murder, but put yourself in their place, if you were captured by someone talking about wiping out your kind, you'd do whatever you had to in order to escape. Compare that to the millions who will die if there is war."

The general gave the scientist a scathing look as he passed by, but he said nothing. His three soldiers followed him out, then the senator. The scientist hurried to keep up, continuing to plead his case.

After several twists and turns, they came to another door, and the general opened it up. Beyond lay another enormous fissure in the earth, identical to the one that housed the hibernating Sea Devils, but this one housed a single slumbering creature. It had a head like a wicked decomposing fish, but fifty stories high and with multiple pairs of eyes, open but unseeing. Along its back were spiny fins, their barbed tips glistening with venom that dripped down the length of the spine to pool in mottled sores on the giant creature's back. It had several pairs of spindly arms that ended in clawed hands with sharp talons. Just how many arms was impossible to see from their point of view, possibly six, possibly more. It's lower body was a mass of constantly writhing tentacles covered in barbed suckers as large as automobiles.

"Behold Lord Dagon!" General Criasix announced. "Destruction and hunger itself. When it awakes, it will consume the surface world and leave it barren."

"Perhaps… perhaps it isn't time, just yet," the senator said. "I spoke in anger before, out of mourning for my lost citizens. But now I think it may be time for cooler heads.

The general's face twisted into a snarl. He clenched his fists and appeared about to strike out at the senator, but turned instead on the scientist. " _You_!" he growled. "You have turned him with your lies! You speak in terms of fear! You worry that the humans will defeat _us_! Or worse, you care more for your playthings than your own people! You are a traitor, and I condemn you!"

In a flash, he pulled the weapon from the belt of one of the soldiers and fired it at the scientist. The scientist screamed in agony and collapsed to the ground. The general threw down the weapon and ran at the crumpled form of the scientist. He lifted his limp body over his head and threw it over the balcony's edge.

"What have you done?" the senator asked, aghast.

"I have begun the sacrifice needed to wake Lord Dagon! There is a reason that the knowledge of how to wake him was passed on through the military; it is because only we would have the commitment to do what was necessary when the time came. Lord Dagon lives for the slaughter, and an offering is all that will wake him. Thausix is just the beginning. I will kill thousands to raise Dagon, and he will kill billions more before he is sated. And once he has cleansed the surface and come back to the sea to sleep again, the world will once again be ours."

General Criasix turned his back on the senator and pressed a button on the balcony control board. A transparent screen slid up, and an overlay of the hibernation chambers appeared, small green dots glowing across its surface. Eight lights were missing, representing the chambers that had already been activated.

The general picked up a circlet connected to the control board by a cable, and placed it on his head. His fingers flew across the control board, and a row of eighty lights on the screen blinked several times, then after a time, turned red.

Below them, the sleeping form of the behemoth twitched.

* * *

The Doctor, Pandora, Juno and John opened another door to find the restless, but still sleeping form of Dagon. Juno screamed. John let out an uncustomary prayer of protection. The Doctor simply said, "Oh no."

The creature below yawned, revealing rows of shark-like teeth and two pairs of feeder arms flanking the enormous mouth. The Doctor turned to the rest of them. "Our shot at diplomacy has passed. We must take more drastic action. Pandora, you need to thaw out the other captives back in the lab. Head down this hallway, turn left at the first intersection, cross the next, then right and two doors down."

He turned to John and Juno and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "You need to effect what repairs you can to the submersible." He twisted the top to show them how. "Blue is for scanning, green is for welding. It's slightly psychic, so when you scan, the results will just pop into your head. Got it? Now, you go left as well out of here, but turn left again at the first intersection, then right at the next, through the next, right again and you're there. Got it?"

"Left, left, straight, right right?" John said, holding out one hand for the sonic.

"No, left, left, right, straight, right. Oh never mind." He twisted the sonic again to infrared and pointed it to his forehead. He screwed his eyes up tightly for a moment, then opened them back up. "There. Installed some mapping software." He twisted the end again and activated it. The tip glowed white. "It will glow white when you are pointing the right direction for the next step of your journey. Go!"

"How do you know where you are going down here?" Juno asked suspiciously.

"There was a diagram in the laboratory, surely you noticed it."

"And you just… memorized it?"

The Doctor shrugged uncomfortably.

"What will you be doing, Doctor?" Pandora asked.

"Making sure that thing doesn't wake up any time soon."

* * *

A thousand lights were now glowing red across the display. The senator felt sick to his stomach, but hadn't the courage to challenge the general. He excused himself and stepped outside. The general looked up when he heard the door, but he simply narrowed his eyes and returned to his task.

The senator closed his eyes and leaned against the wall just outside the door. What was he allowing to happen? Was this how he wanted to be remembered?

He was startled out of his thoughts by a squeaking sound at the end of the hallway. He looked up to see the Doctor skidding around the corner and racing toward him. "Senator Doamix! We have to stop this while there's still time!" the Doctor called to him.

The senator looked back at the door and moved away to join the Doctor. "He's killing off our own to fuel his revenge!"

"Well then, you have to stop him."

"I can't!" the senator complained.

"If he unleashes Dagon, you won't be able to control it! Once it has wiped out humanity, it will start in on your people! That is if it doesn't start off with you. I mean, he is here already," the Doctor reasoned.

"You don't understand, I can't. He has armed guards, and he's already murdered Thausix. I cannot stand against him!"

"Oh, well in that case, you can help _me_ stop him."

"What can I do?"

"Can you cause a distraction?" the Doctor asked.

The senator thought for a moment, then a smile spread across his beak. "The general may know how to wake Lord Dagon, but _I_ know where his panel gets it's power."

* * *

The Doctor waited down the opposite hallway, and several minutes later, the lights went out, and emergency lighting glowed softly. There was some banging coming from the door, then quiet, and a glow began in the center of the door. Bits of metal began to drip from the door as the glow spread across its surface. The metal continued to drip and crumble until there was a hole large enough for the Sea Devils to step out through. The general stepped carefully out and turned around.

"The humans must have shut off the power. Come with me. And shoot to kill." He turned and strode off down the hallway, followed by his retinue and leaving the control room empty.

Once the Sea Devils were around the corner, the Doctor sneaked out of hiding and stepped through the crumbling and still warm door. The Doctor approached the control board and picked up the circlet. "A psychic interface," he said to himself. "Along with the sacrifice of all his people, the general was pumping his own rage, his thirst for power and his lover of conquest into Dagon, stirring him up and preparing him for slaughter! Oh, general, what have you done?"

The console had no power, so it was useless to him at the moment, but the general was about to fix that. The Doctor placed the circlet on his head and started a count. However long it would be until the lights come on, that's how long he'd have to reverse the damage the general had done. Two minutes forty-eight seconds later, the lights came on.

His fingers flew across the keyboard. Some of those red dots were still blinking. There was time to save them!

Suddenly there was a blinding pain in his mind. "Aaargh!" he cried out and fell to his knees. The psychic interface was made to work with a different physiognomy to his, and he was suffering a massive feedback. But if he focused on the pain, that would revive Dagon all the sooner.

He focused his mind. He thought of cool, calming waters. He thought of swaying gently in the waves. He typed as quickly as he dared, and saw flashing red lights turn one by one to green. He thought of the smell of a sea breeze on a gentle sunny day. He imagined sinking into the soporific mists of Sqornshellous Zeta.

Time got away from him. He wasn't sure how much he had left, so he pulled the headpiece from his head. He took the barest moment to bask in the feeling of not being in searing pain, then tore the circlet cable violently from the console.

"Stop!" he heard from behind him. The Doctor looked back to see the general stepping through the ruined door, and casually dropped the headpiece over the balcony's edge.

"No!" the general screamed and lunged for it, too late. He watched it fall into the pit below. A waving tentacle from the enormous creature slammed it against the cliff face, and when it passed, all it left was a vaguely metallic smear.

The general turned on the Doctor, seething with anger. "You have ruined everything!" he yelled. He reached out with both hands and grabbed the Doctor by the throat. He threw the Doctor to the ground and knelt over him.

The Doctor struggled to breath. "You—" he managed to eek out in a strangled whisper before the general's grip tightened on his throat.

"But we were _so close_ ," the general whispered. His beak began to twist into a wicked smile. "Perhaps just one more sacrifice will be enough to wake Lord Dagon."

The Doctor managed to knock away the general's hands for a moment and gasp for breath.

The general's smile widened as he pulled the Doctor's hands away with one of his own and renewed his grip on the Doctor's throat with the other.

"But what kind of sacrifice is it to kill your enemy?" The Doctor croaked. "Surely that's not sacrifice, that's just death!"

The general's grip weakened, then he let go completely and sat back on his haunches. "You're right," he whispered in a voice suddenly softened by deep realization. "It isn't just the death that matters, it's the sacrifice."

He stood up, and he looked to his soldiers, who shuffled nervously. The general didn't seem to notice. He walked over to the balcony and looked out at his god. Its sleep was restless. It was making a sound that was half snoring and half growling, and it was moving fitfully. "What could be more of a sacrifice than my own life?" he asked as he stepped up onto the railing.

He looked back at the Doctor, a calm coming over him. "Just one more life, but just the right one. And Lord Dagon will wipe out your kind forever." He turned back around, teetering on the edge.

The Doctor sat up and rubbed at his throat. "No, you mustn't," he said in a raspy voice.

"Goodbye Doctor," the general said. "May your death be long and painful." He leaned forward and dove into the crevice.

The Doctor rushed forward and leaned over the railing to watch the general, already a distant speck, falling to his inevitable death. One of Dagon's spindly arms moved and swatted the general aside like an annoying gnat. He tumbled and disappeared into darkness.

The Doctor no longer had the circlet, but he closed his eyes lightly and thought the most calming thoughts he could muster. He thought of clouds drifting lazily across a summer sky. He thought of the wind creating foam as it blew over deep ocean waves. Finally he settled on the color blue, a vast field of baby blue, pushing all other thoughts from his head.

After several minutes of this, he dared to open his eyes. Dagon's movements seemed less agitated, the thrashing of its tentacles less rapid, the noise it made, more of a snore and less of a growl.

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and turned around. The soldiers looked at him blankly, then as one, raised their weapons to point at him.

"That's quite enough of that," said the senator, stepping into the room. "Soldiers, your general is dead, and his misguided plan to destroy both our races is at an end. Return to your pods. I believe the world is not yet ready for our return."

The soldiers seemed as if they were more comfortable now that they had orders, and they marched out of the room, leaving the senator and the Doctor alone.

The Doctor was still massaging his throat. "What-" he started.

"Rest your throat, Doctor, I know what you are going to ask," the senator said, holding up a hand. "I'm going to set the alarm a few degrees higher and join them."

The Doctor nodded and placed a hand on the Sea Devil's shoulder. He squeezed gently, then left the room to find the others.

He found Pandora as well as Svetlana and the three American men in the entrance to the lava tube. Pandora came over to the Doctor and gave him a huge hug when she saw him. "Juno thinks she can right the sub with the manipulator arms." John and the three Americans stood next to the sub with poles planted underneath for use as levers.

The two manipulator arms flexed, then moved, and began pressing on the rock of the lava tube. The four men pushed up on the levers. The ship moved, but didn't right. The motors on the manipulator arms whined loudly and started to smoke.

Pandora and the Doctor ran over and added their strength to the levers. The submersible began slowly to tip, then it rolled, and finally it splashed into the sea amidst loud rejoicing.

"Of course," Pandora said, "we thought it was crowded in there _before_ …"

The group looked at each other a little uncomfortably.

"We'll make it a little easier. Pandora and I will find our own way to the surface," the Doctor said. "I just came to see you off."

"What do we do next?" John asked. He held out his hand, offering the sonic screwdriver back to the Doctor.

The Doctor accepted it. "I'm purposely leaving that to you. Are you going to tell them about what sleeps down here? Are you going to increase the urgency of decreasing the temperature? Are you going to spread the idea of sharing the planet with another intelligent species?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Come along Pandora."

Pandora hurried to catch up, then when she was close enough to whisper, she asked, "Are we really going to leave them like this?"

"Oh, they'll be fine. And besides, I don't want to get in the middle of this. I'm not good with the questions."

"And how exactly are we getting out of here?"

"I sent you back to the lab, and you still didn't look at the diagram? They have airshafts drilled up to the island surface, and maintenance elevators. We'll come out near the town of Thasos, grab a ferry, be back in time to hop the transport back to RAF Croughton."

"Doctor?" Pandora asked after a while.

"Yes?"

"Is it true? Did the Sea Devils really make humans in a lab?"

"Course not. Whole idea is bullocks. You lot came out of Africa, right? The animal he experimented on probably died out on this island a few years after they all went to sleep."

"Did you ever see humans? Back then I mean. When they were just getting started?"

"Of course. The whole thing started when a spaceship crash landed there. Turns out the captain was so fond of baths, he didn't leave one for years at a time. Brought a couple of hitchhikers there with him too."

"Didn't you get that story from Douglas Adams?" Pandora asked with narrowed eyes.

The Doctor smiled. "You got me. The truth is, I get some of my best stories from Douglas Adams."

* * *

The trip back always seems shorter than the way there, and so it was for them on their way back to England. When Pandora stepped out of the tube and into the sunlight back in London proper, the first thing she did was pull out her tablet and check for a wireless signal.

"Yes!" she proclaimed. "Oh how I missed you." She kissed the tablet and started downloading the latest news stories. "Let's see what we missed out on…"

"More to the point, did _we_ make the news?" the Doctor asked.

"Um, oh, here! There's a story about Svetlana's safe return. That's something. But I don't see anything about Sea Devils or the crew of the Atlantis." She continued scrolling the headlines. "Hah! Here's one you might be interested in, Time Boy."

"Oh yeah? What have you got?" the Doctor asked.

"Just kidding really. They're opening a time capsule today down in Grosvenor Square," Pandora said.

"Love a good time capsule. You never know what they'll bury. Saw a man find his car keys in one once. Can't tell you how relieved he was."

"So you actually want to go then?" Pandora asked, surprised.

"Wouldn't miss it," he said with a broad smile.

They had gotten off the tube at Marble Arch, so it was only a few minutes walk. They were in Grosvenor Square for the ground breaking. There was a lot of ceremony around it, and a local politician with a golden spade gave a short speech and dug the first scoop out. After that, some workmen took over and they had the box out in no time.

It looked a bit like a munitions canister, but about twice as big. This time it was a local historian who got to say a few words about the time period, and he got some polite laughter upon saying he remembered it well because he was already old when it happened. They set the canister down on a tarp, and he got down on one knee to open it.

The Doctor and Pandora pressed forward to get a good view as he pulled back the lid and reached inside.

"Our first item is," he said with a dramatic pause before pulling out his hand, "a cocktail napkin, it appears."

This got a lot more laughter than his feeble joke had.

"What's it got on it?" someone in the crowd called out.

"Well, it's got a lipstick mark of some sort, and there's some writing on it."

"What's it say?" someone else called out as the historian adjusted his glasses.

"It says, 'Hello, Sweetie'."


End file.
